Fund manager Fidelity has expanded its ETF offering with a new range of thematic funds, including one investing in the Metaverse.

The Metaverse is an online 3D virtual world which includes gaming, social connection and some business applications.

The Fidelity Thematic ETF range will be launched initially with five new Irish-domiciled ETF products. 

The funds are focused on long-term, structural trends covering key, themed sectors with sustainable issues in mind. Ongoing charges are typically 0.5%.

The five themes tracked in the new range are:

• Clean energy (Fidelity Clean Energy UCITS ETF), 

• Electric vehicles and future transportation (Fidelity Electric Vehicles and Future Transportation UCITS ETF), 

• Cloud computing (Fidelity Cloud Computing UCITS ETF), 

• Digital health (Fidelity Digital Health UCITS ETF) 

• The Metaverse - an online virtual space (Fidelity Metaverse UCITS ETF) 

Fidelity says that all are article 8 aligned under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), with a minimum of 50% of the index constituents deemed to maintain sustainable characteristics. 

Trading on the funds began last week in London Stock Exchange, Germany and Switzerland. 

Fidelity’s active ETF range now encompasses 17 funds covering Income, Sustainable Equity, Sustainable Fixed Income and Thematic. 

Nick King, head of ETFs at Fidelity, said: “Thematic investing seeks to identify and capitalise on long-term, structural trends by investing across countries and sectors to capture transformative drivers of the global economy, businesses and society. Many of these themes have an enhanced focus on sustainability as well as seeking to address specific social and environmental challenges.”

“Our thematic indexes have been constructed through a collaboration of our proprietary fundamental, sustainable and quantitative research capabilities to ensure that we are providing clients with exposure to the best stocks in each particular theme, at a competitive price.”